8 Red Flags Employers See on Your Resume

8 Red Flags Employers See on Your Resume8 Red Flags Employers See on Your ResumeHiring managers spend only seconds skimming your resume before making a quick decision about whether to reject you or consider you further, so its essential that your resume doesnt contain the red flags that will turn them off during that short initial scan. Here are eight red flags that will often put you straight into the no pile without further consideration.1. A history of job-hopping. If you have a history of moving quickly from one job to the next without staying very long, employers will wonder whether you get bored easily or cant keep a job. If you do have good reasons for the job changes (such as having a spouse in the military), make aya to fill in employers upfront so they dont draw wrong conclusions.2. Grammatical or spelling mistakes. Mistakes can get your resume immediately tossed, because they convey to an employer that you dont pay attention to detail. Employers assume that youve polished your resume more than you will most documents, so if you have mistakes in it, they assume your work will have even more errors.3. Bad writing. Even for jobs that dont require flawless writing, employers still want to see evidence that you can communicate well. If you dont write clearly and concisely, theyll worry about how youll communicate once on the job- and many will take your resume-writing quality as a shortcut to drawing conclusions about your intelligence.4. Overly aggrandized self-descriptions. Hiring managers generally frown on language like visionary thinker, creative innovator or respected leader because these are the sorts of things that others can say about you, but you cant say credibly about yourself. Putting them on your resume signals that youre either naive, arrogant or both. Stick to objective experience and accomplishments only.5. Lack of evidence of achievement. If your resume lists nothing but your job duties at each job- rather than what you achieved there- y oull signal that you never did more than the basic requirements. Hiring managers are looking for candidates with a track record of achievement, not meeting extremum requirements, but going above and beyond and accomplishing things that an average candidate wouldnt.6. No overarching theme to your career choices. If youve moved from one unrelated job to the next, without a clear pattern, employers will be skeptical about your commitment to the roles youre applying for now. Most employers want to be able to scan your resume and get a quick understanding of how youve progressed within one or two fields, rather than trying to work out how youve moved from tech writer to salesperson to nurses assistant to video editor.7. Lack of professionalism. If your resume includes information about your spouse and children, or other information unrelated to your qualifications as a candidate, most employers will conclude that youre naive at best and unprofessional at worst.8. Large gaps between jobs. When employers see gaps of unemployment, they wonder what happened during that time. Did you leave the previous job with nothing lined up, and if so, why? Were you working somewhere that youve deliberately left off your resume, and if so, what are you hiding? Gaps raise questions that you dont want on a hiring managers mind.Alison Green writes the popular Ask a Manager blog, where she dispenses advice on career, job search, and management issues. Shes also the co-author of Managing to Change the World The Nonprofit Managers Guide to Getting Results, and former chief of staff of a successful nonprofit organization, where she oversaw day-to-day staff management, hiring, firing, and employee development.